There are many, many people who are in jobs they are unhappy with, yet they will continue in them for a lifetime. People do come up with million-dollar ideas but only a very tiny fraction of those go anywhere with them. Most never let the ideas out of their minds. It’s as if creativity is crushed long before we come out of grade school. What happened? What is employment mentality?
Employment Can Effect Your Mentality
When we go through school, we are constantly given subtle messages by everybody else around us, be it our teachers, the school master or principal, and even the school janitor. When we come home from school, there’s our parents, our family, our relatives, our friends, our friends’ families, and even the very humdrum of the world around us.
Then there’s television, radio, magazines, books, Hollywood, celebrities, sports players. It’s on the billboards. It’s just everywhere!
It’s called employee mentality and we’re all right in the middle of it. It reigns high and low. It is the default in life. It’s the common man and even in the executive world. Why?
There are 7.2 billion people living now on the earth. 3 billion are currently employed and 205 million unemployed. There are almost 2 billion children in the world. Of those over 65? What of those who are disabled? What of those who can work but are not and are receiving government benefits?
What it comes down to is that there are very, very few truly wealthy people, now going at a rate of about 15,000,000 millionaires in the world today with about 5,000,000 in the United States and Canada. There are less than 2,000 billionaires world wide. The truly wealthy folks in thte world comprise a mere 0.02% of the entire population! Out of a few others in the world who are not wealthy or marginally so, there are some who aspire entrepreneurship.
The staggering number of folks in the world are strongly influenced by the employment world in some degree or on the other token, don’t know or care what entreprneurism is.
Creativity
Passion and Interest
If you are within the solid 71% of those who are disengaged with their jobs, (even worse in some countries, including the UK, India, Tailand, etc) you are in a job position that is mismatched with your interests. This common scenario results in complacency, distain and even hatred for the job position, the people who supervise you, the company and the physical plant or environment you work in. You are there for the paycheck only, nothing more. Friday brings on elated feelings, knowing the weekend is approaching however, when Sunday afternoon or evening arrives, that all-familiar dread sets in as soon as that job comes to mind. That very thought causes many a contenance to drop. The Weekend Clock usually ticks like a purring motor, but the Work Clock, a slow drip. This is the life of those who have no passion nor interest in what they do for 40 years of their lives. With school and then employment, creativity gets crushed because very little time is spent doing the things that interest you because we can’t do better with that. Yourr job come first.
Vision
You are concerned with the here and now. What’s in front of you is only what you deal with, without thought of what’s to come unless of course, there’s indication of changes in position, lay-offs, etc. You are used to the day-to-day humdrum and expect little more than that. Future visions you have are probably outside of the job and company concerns. You do your job for the day and you leave. Simple as that. Of course, higher, better positions, such as teacher, manager, skilled labour, such as carpenter, technician, allows more room for a more vision within the position. Albeit, you are still held within a pre-determined protocol and your freedom is limited. You are too tired for vision. The only thing you see is television.
Learning
In a regular job, if you are in the group of labour-intensive positions or any other job not reqquiring high skill, chances are likely that the work you are doing becomes, not only automatic, but that there is little incentive to learn anything new, at least when on the job. Your only times to learn is when you’ve been through the formal training for the job position you’re in and perhaps once in a while, you may learn a new trick or two. Even then, doing something differently in such positions may be met with reprimand, even if it does afford a better way to do something because you have gone outside the box and are not supposed to do that. If you do learn anything, it’s going to be that career that will provide a better paying job. There is one type of learning that evades most people. It never occurs to the vast majority.
Decision-Making
When on the job, your superiors decide what it is you will and will not be doing. Usually, the only incentives you have are in how well you do tasks and how efficient you are with these however, even in these scenarios, it still depends on the expectations of your employer. In higher employment positions, your positions will probably include more decision-making that you wouldn’t get in positions such as restaurant work, construction labourer, landscaping labourer, etc. If you’re fortunate, you’re into a job position you enjoy doing and it’s even fun. Some of these positons, when matched with the right employees, enccourages growth and higher positions along the way. You get more responsibilities that you enjoy doing and get to decide more of what gets done within the company you work for. Not so for most!
Parameters
You walk a tight ship. Almost any little thing you do outside the parameters of the rules can get you dismissed, depending on who’s just waiting to get in behind you, so you are careful about breaking any rules. Unfortunately, there’s a sub-group within that 71% that does what they can to get out of any work or responsibility they can get away with. This includes deciding to step out for those unauthorized smoke breaks, doing things you shouldn’t be doing on the clock, etc.
Your work ethic may or may not have any effect on what happens if you happen to do something out of step. You will likely be called into the office and be given a verbal spanking, that is to say, a warning. You don’t dare step out of line at any time, as in employment, there are many opportunities to make the wrong decision! The wisest decisions you can make are to obey your superiors and abide by company rules.
The one important decision you have that you can make, based on at-will laws, is that you can come or go as you please, but this does have consequences unless you have already made preparations for this. This includes the facts that your company has the same rights you do. It can terminate you without warning for any reason or even no reason at all, which is a bit unfair because you are usually required to provide a specified period of advanced notice. The at-will law says otherwise, but to go the same route your employer might take against you, you doing it can tarnish your ability to move on to a new job position!
Your parameters within employment are usually quite restrictive.
Time and Effort
Security
You depend on your job. It’s probably your only source of income, unless you have a second job or some form of self-employment. Having said this, you most likely, your comfort zone has borders and you scarcely venture out past these. Even though you don’t like it, your job sometimes interferes with your family but you learn to take that in stride.
Time
Outside of making quotas and being busy, even if you are to pretend you are busy, time is the only thing you are concerned about. This is usually less or different for the better positions where you may look at the time in matters of getting stuff done. Albeit, if you are in a job position you don’t like or does nothing to captivate your interest, your concern with time will be its passing, that you get out for the day to do the things you enjoy outside.
Quota
You worry only about meeting the quota. If there is an incentive to do better, then you may go for that. Otherwise, you are there to do the job. You may do a good job and are thorough and timely with excellent work ethics, but without incentives, there’s little point in going above and beyond. When it comes to the actual numbers, (quota, bean-counters, etc) that’s the company’s concern and you’re there to make sure you put in a good day’s work. Of course, many higher positions put more responsibility upon you to improve upon the numbers and your incentive becomes being the best in that regard. (You sell more units, create more accounts, bring in more clients, etc.)
Conclusion
Entrepreneurship is an exciting and highly satisfactiry lifestyle. Nobody says you need to be within that 0.02% or even the so-called 4% of those who have made the grade. Entrepreneurship is not a job position like many people believe. It’s a way of life. It can bring about financial freedom. Though you still have responsibilities and things you must do, these can be done on your own terms.
Like any other way of life, entrepreneurship reaches within the realms of employment despair and into the poorest of places. However its door is secret and few there be that find it. Many do not even know nor have ever thought about the idea that education, the right kind of education, in leiu of those million-dollar ideas, is that secret door. The education is not formal, and life itself is part of that education however, there are places around that offer education in an entrepreneurial environment – at entry level. Here’s one.
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